Kennet, Missouri — In a shocking conclusion to 12-year-old Jason Williams’ attempted murder trial, the jury has delivered another shocking verdict – death by electrocution.

On November 20th, 2004, the same jury returned a guilty verdict in nine of the eleven counts against Jason Williams, which ranged from “conspiracy to commit murder” to “attempted murder in the first degree with special aggravated circumstances” – the latter allowing capitol punishment to be considered. Parents and politicians were outraged and filed complaints with the court.

“Justice has been done,” Judge Thomas Nelson said at the time. “Hopefully he’ll get the chair.”

The case began in May 2004, when Jason fired off a series of rubberbands at his 7th grade history teacher.

“I was terrified,” Mrs Alexander said. “He could have killed me. I didn’t know what was going on,” She recounted. “One minute I was teaching the class, the next minute projectiles were whizzing by my head. I dropped to the floor to keep from being shot.”

When Mrs Alexander had dropped to the floor, she dropped onto the supplies that she was carrying to create a map of the world. One of those items was a compass and another was a wooden ruler.

The compass entered her chest point first and punctured her left lung, while the ruler entered between two ribs and punctured her liver. As she rolled off of the equipment, the ruler broke off, leaving more than eight inches embedded in her liver.

She was rushed to Kennet Memorial Hospital, where surgeons worked feverishly to stop the bleeding and seal her ruptured lung.

“It was touch and go,” Dr Bill Pike said. “It was more go than touch, actually. We thought we had lost her several times, but she pulled through.”

Mrs Alexander spent six weeks undergoing liver treatments and cosmetic surgery to heal the wounds, followed by two months of physical therapy.

Based on accounts by other students, who testified that Jason had planned to shoot Mrs Alexander while she passed his desk, the jury concluded that his intention was to catch her unawares in the hope of doing considerable harm. At this time it is difficult to speculate how the jury made the leap to attempted murder.

The jury’s recommendation, which was accepted by Judge Nelson, was for death by electrocution.

Jason’s sentence was scheduled to be carried out on May 29th unless an appeal is filed.

-staff reporter-bs